Session timeout

Education Center

General

What does Crowd-Genie do?

We are a peer-to-peer online lending platform that allows Singapore-based SMEs to obtain financing from multiple investors. Being an intermediary platform, we match borrowers looking for debt financing with lenders looking for debt investments.

All loans are pre-screened and assigned a risk rating using our proprietary risk assessment tools to evaluate companies seeking debt funding, based on which, we propose an appropriate interest rate for investors to lend money to the SMEs.

As a neutral party, we will provide all information about our listed borrowers for both quantitative and qualitative financial information, including the key risk for investors’ consideration.

What are the risks in Peer-to-peer lending?

Despite the benefits of diversification, there is a high degree of risk associated with private investments. Investing in private investments requires high-risk tolerance, low liquidity concerns and long-term commitments. Before making your investment choice, carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of any investment product. Please read the risk statement for more details

How is Crowd-genie different from bank?

We pride ourselves on being more customer-centric than banks. Thanks to our business model, our whole organization is focused on making peer-to-peer lending more cost effective and convenient. Our aim is to offer better services and value to both borrowers and investors.

Borrowers:

We look to offer more competitive interest rates than what the banks would offer. We believe that our business model would allow us to lower the cost of transaction for the borrowers

Time is money for SMEs, our purpose is to keep paper work to the minimum, and get funds to the SMEs as quickly as possible

We are open to more diverse group of borrowers, you do not need to have perfect credit rating or financials. What is more important to us is your repayment ability. There is a risk of borrower's default that we assess internally and share with the investors transparently. The investors can choose whether they are willing to take higher risk for higher returns

Investors:

We offer a fixed-income investment opportunity with a significantly better return than what you would get from a bank. The banks have high overheads that increase their costs. As a result, while they charge borrowers, up to 9-15% interest, their depositors get only 1-2% through fixed deposit. Because of our lean business model, we can offer significantly better returns

Single platform to see a range of risk and return options. Crowd-genie assesses SMEs listing on our platform and gives them a grade. Higher the grade, lower is the interest rate. As an investor, you can choose what risk and return profile meets your expectations

Support SMEs to grow faster. Most jobs in Singapore are generated by SMEs. As investors, you can help them grow faster while receiving higher income

What is Crowd-genie’s role?

In our role as an intermediary between borrowers and investors, we:

Assess the credit worthiness of borrowers using our proprietary risk assessment model that takes into account multiple variables such as profitability, credit rating, debt to equity ratio, and cash flows

Manage the legal documentation of the transactions

Facilitate and manage the timely fund transactions between the borrowers and investors

Aim to resolve defaults by borrowers using debt collection agencies. In case that does not work, we provide investors with requisite information to enable them to take legal action

What kind of loans do you offer?

Currently, Crowd-genie only offers unsecured loans.

These are highly flexible loans that can be used for a wide range of purposes, including working capital, expansion capital, asset purchase and more. We will require a personal guarantee (PG) as security.

Are you regulated?

Yes, Crowd Genie has received its capital markets service license from Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in March 2017.

What happens if Crowd-genie goes out of business?

We have an escrow agent that holds all the borrower monies. In an unlikely event of us going out of business, the funds would still be completely protected. As per our agreement with the escrow agent, in case we go out of business, the escrow agent, will take over the servicing of outstanding loans and collect payments as per the agreements between the borrowers and investors.

Is my personal data secure with Crowd-genie?

We use the following security measures to safeguard your data:

Encryption: From the moment any information you enter on our website leaves your computer to the time it enters Crowd-genie’s system it is encrypted. We employ some of the strongest forms of encryption (“SSL”) commercially available for use on the Web today

Secure account set-up and login: When you log on to create an account, we ask you to create a username and password. To securely log on to your account, you are asked to provide your username and password. Passwords are stored in an encrypted form in our systems

Timed log-off: Our system will automatically log you off after a certain period of inactivity. This reduces the risk of others accessing your information from your unattended computer

How large is the financing amount?

The typical facility amount is SGD 50,000 - 500,000.

What are the fees?

We believe in transparency. There is no processing charge for investors or borrowers during application.

Both borrowers and investors pay a fee only when a loan is successfully funded.

Borrowers:

We charge an origination fee on each loan we fund ranging from 2% – 5% of the total loan amount. The origination fee is based on the strength of the credit profile, with higher fees for lower credit scores. For example, if you successfully raise a loan of S$100,000, and you have the highest credit score of 1, then our origination fee will be 2%, and you will receive S$100,000 – 2%(S$2000) = S$98,000 in your account.

There are no other fees for your application or consultation.

Investors:

We charge you a 3% to 8% service fee when you receive a repayment from the borrower. It is deducted from the escrow agency account. If the borrower does not make a repayment, we do not get any fee.

What is an escrow agency?

Crowd-genie’s escrow agent ensures that your funds is appropriately received and handled for the security of your funds. It also ensures that the platform complies with the anti-money laundering efforts set forth by the government to track the source of funds. Investing in a platform that does not use an escrow agency account is risky and strongly discouraged. Instead of transferring to the business account of a platform, you should only transfer funds to the escrow agency account to ensure that your funds actually go to SMEs as loans, instead of being used to pay back other investors (as in a ponzi scheme) or to bail out the platform in the event that it does not have sufficient funds. Similarly, SME borrowers will want to ensure that their repayments go to investors like you, instead of being held by the platform itself.

Are the investments guaranteed or insured?

Currently, the loan investments are not guaranteed or insured, as this is a new product for consumers and insurance companies.

That being said, CrowdGenie Directors co-invest in each listing along side the Investors. We do this to ensure that there is our “skin in the game” and in case of any default, we too stand to lose money. Therefore, our interests are aligned with those of the Investors and we want to make sure that only borrowers who pass our strict due diligence can be listed on our platform.

Who can access the platform?

Only registered members of Crowd-genie can gain access to the information and services provided by the platform. To gain registration, identification proofs are required.

Crowd Genie Financial Services Pte. Ltd. "CG"), registered in Singapore (UEN # 201600134C), provides services that involve maintaining a list of Issuers which are looking to raise funds by the issuance of Notes, allowing potential Investors to subscribe for Notes issued by the Issuers and such other services as CG may introduce from time to time.

The content and material in this website is for information only and should not be regarded as an offer, solicitation, invitation, advice or recommendation to buy, sell, subscribe or dispose of any investments, securities, any other financial services, financial instruments or banking product. CG and the Escrow Agent do not and will not assume any advisory, fiduciary or similar or other duties or act as adviser to any Investor, or any other services except as are herein explicitly specified in the terms and conditions to the platform (the "Agreement"). Any information on the Platform, marketing material or any documentation that CG prepares, is provided without any representations or any kind of warranties whatsoever (whether express or implied by law). CG expressly disclaims to the fullest extent permitted by law all express, implied and statutory warranties, including without limitation, the warranties as to functionality, operability, accessibility, accuracy, correctness, reliability, updated-ness, timeliness, satisfactory quality, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement of proprietary rights. Neither CG or the Escrow Agent, nor any of its officers, members, representatives, affiliates, agents, parent(s), subsidiaries, successors and assigns shall have any liability whatsoever for any expenses, losses or damages arising out of or in connection with, whether directly or indirectly, the functionality, operability, accessibility, accuracy, correctness, reliability, updated-ness, timeliness, satisfactory quality, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose (or lack thereof) of the Platform and the use of or reliance on all or any part of the information contained in this Platform, or in any marketing material. The Investor should ensure that it is capable of assessing the merits of and understanding (on its own behalf or through independent professional advice), and understands the terms, conditions and risks for any investment.

This website is intended for Accredited Investors only as defined in section 4A(1)(a) of the Securities and Futures Act (“SFA”), Chapter 289.